Dancing in the Sky
by WlkWthThShdws
Summary: Rowena's life was not an easy one, nor was it a happy one. One-shot.


A/N: This is a small side story of Sparrow. I must warn you, this is not a happy story, nor does it have a happy ending. If any of the warnings upset or offend you, feel free to not read this. If you do continue to read this, please note that things are kept time-appropriate. This story takes place during the 17th century, so what is illegal now, may not have even been considered wrong then.

Warning: Contains child death, underage pregnancy, and child abandonment.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or anything else you may recognize.

She was a tanner's daughter. A small, pale, filthy girl with no knowledge of the life that lay before her. She had seen seven winters, which she only knew because her mother told her. She had two sisters even smaller than her. Morgan had seen five, and Margaret, or Maisie as she called her, had seen two.

She walked unsteadily across the stone floor, holding Maisie. Their mother was laying down again, her fainting sickness preventing her from doing much, and their father was at work. She sat the little girl down on a chair and stood on a wooden stool to reach the boiling pot. She was careful not to burn herself on the fire as she ladled out a portion of porridge into each of the three bowls. She set them on the table, out of reach of Maisie.

The child reached for them.

"No, Maisie! Hot!" she chided. She went into their room and tried to wake Morgan. "C'mon Morgan, it's time ta eat."

Morgan mumbled in her sleep but didn't wake.

She pulled the blanket away from her sister. She put her hand on Morgan's arm to wake her, only to find that the girl's skin felt terribly hot. Taking a closer look, she noticed that Morgan was shivering, yet her skin was slick with sweat. She backed out of the room and ran to her mother. "Ma! Morgan's sick!"

Her mother sat up, groaning in pain. She looked over at her. "Go an' feed Margaret. I'll check on Morgan."

"Yes, Ma'am." She quietly went into the main room to Maisie, who was playing with a cloth doll on the floor. She gently tugged the doll away and put Maisie back on her chair.

Maisie's eyes teared up when the doll was taken away.

Before Maisie could start to cry, a spoonful of porridge was pushed at her lips. She swallowed the food hungrily. Before long the food was gone, and the little girl was back on the floor with her doll.

She left Maisie to play and went into their room.

Her mother sat next to Morgan's bed.

"Ma? Wha's wrong wi' her?

Her mother looked at her strangely. "Ah do na know. Your Da will be home, later. He will find out.

As soon as her father got home, he was hurried to their room. He took one look at Morgan and rushed out to get the doctor. When he returned the three adults huddled around Morgan's bed. The doctor asked a lot of questions. When they returned to the main room he finally spoke. "Tha lass has typhus. From tha look of it, she was bitten by a tick. Ah was able ta remove it. She will have fevers with a lot o' coughing. She has a rash on most o' her body. It does na look good."

Her parents looked at each other. "Is she gonna die?" her mother asked.

The doctor looked grim. "Normally, I would say na, but at her age… If ya canna gets tha fever down, yes, she will die. Ye must check the other children for a bite." He said a bit more but it was more than she could understand.

Morgan let out a horrible cough.

Within a few days, she and Maisie were sick too. She drifted in and out of consciousness, often mad with delirium. Within two weeks she was able to stay awake for a few hours at a time. In time, she made a full recovery. Maisie and Morgan had not been so lucky. The fever took them a week after they had gotten sick. In her fever-driven delirium, she had not known.

They were buried in the churchyard under an old tree. She felt as though the color had been sucked out of her world, leaving it dark and dreary.

After that, she visited their graves often with wildflowers in hand. she only had her mother to care for now. Other children ran the dirt paths outside, but she stayed inside. She kept to herself, unwilling to deal with the loud, obnoxious children in the village. She often wondered what Heaven was like. In her dreams, she saw her sisters dancing in the sky. She sometimes wished to be with them.

The next year, her mother died. Her father said that her mother died from sorrow from the loss of her daughters. It was only her and her father now. She kept the house and cooked the meals. But she was lonely. Very lonely.

Five years passed without change. She had grown quite a lot and was now the prettiest girl in the village. Many boys wanted her, but even though she was now of a marriable age, she never particularly noticed their attentions. But a man had come to the village and was taken with her arresting green eyes and fiery hair. He began to court her in secret and told her that he loved her. She was enamored with him. She soon found herself with child. Her father was furious at her indiscretion and whipped her badly that day, but she did not care. She believed her lover would take her with him once he learned about the baby. But he did not come around until a week before the child was due.

She had never been more wrong. He cared nothing for her and was angry when he found out about the baby. He said she had been a pretty toy, but he did not love her. He went back to his wife and his grand home, leaving her behind. The stress sent her into labor and she spent many hours of agony on a straw mat, begging God to end it. But the child came and she still lived. As she lay in a pool of blood, she realized, her love had made her weak. In that moment, as she looked at the squalling babe in her arms, she swore she would never be weak again.

Her father died soon after and she was taken in by an older woman, who the villagers considered strange. She took up witchcraft and as the child grew, she taught him everything she had learned. But she didn't love him. She couldn't. Love was a weakness. So, she hated him.

He was a good-looking child. His hair was red like her own, he had her high cheekbones, but his eyes were as blue as his father's eyes had been. He grew up strong and loved her despite her disdain for him. He was talented at witchcraft, but to her jaded eyes, he would still never amount to anything. Everything he did grated on her nerves to the point of wanting to thrash him. But she would never lay her hand on her child, even if she could not stand him.

They often went hungry, being poor, and she once entertained the idea of selling him for some pigs to slaughter. Yet when she went to sell him, something very small inside her pained at the thought of leaving him there. So, she took him home.

The old woman died a few years after taking her in. The villagers were suspicious of her, and they were in the throes of a witch panic. So, on the child's eighth birthday, the young woman left the cottage and told him she was going to the market and would be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail. But she never returned.

On that day, Rowena MacLeod left Scotland, and never looked back.

A/N: We have come to the end of this story. I hope you liked it. Please review.


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